Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Bubble chart showing opportunity vs. risk for low-carbon transition for international oil companies (IOCs) and national oil companies (NOCs) in 2017. Larger bubble size = stronger performance on climate governance and strategy. Graphic: CDP

Fossil fuel divestment will increase carbon emissions, not lower them – “The divestment movement will simply force international oil companies to cede market share to national oil companies”

By Stefan Andreasson 25 November 2019 (The Conversation) – A global campaign encouraging individuals, organisations and institutional investors to sell off investments in fossil fuel companies is gathering pace. According to 350.org, US$11 trillion has already been divested worldwide. But, while it may seem a logical strategy, divestment will not lower demand for fossil fuels, which […]

Firefighters are overwhelmed by flames at a bushfire in Orangeville, west of Campbelltown, 6 December 2019. Photo: Nick Moir / The Sydney Morning Herald

Video: Australia firefighters flee “explosion of fire” in Sydney’s south-west – “There will be no relief, not in the immediate future”

By Lucy Cormack, Nick Moir, and Megan Levy 6 December 2019 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Firefighters were forced to run from an “explosion of fire” in Sydney’s south-west on Thursday night, as the bushfire crisis again tightened its grip over the state. At the peak of the crisis, seven fires around NSW were classified as […]

Oil production from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, 2012-2019. New drilling in Eagle Ford only replaces production declines from old wells. Data: BloombergNEF. Graphic: Bloomberg

Faded Texas oil field offers austerity lesson for U.S. shale – “There’s an inflection point coming here because production growth is going to slow down massively”

By Kevin Crowley 2 December 2019 (Bloomberg) – At EOG Resources Inc.’s Francisco lease in the heart of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, a half dozen cows laze in the shade of a tree next to black oil-storage tanks. A small flare burns atop a steel pylon, like a memorial to the boom […]

People gather for an anti-government protest in Santiago, Chile, Friday, 1 November 2019. Groups of Chileans continued to demonstrate as government and opposition leaders debated the response to weeks of protests that paralyzed much of the capital and forced the cancellation of two major international summits. Photo: AP Photo

From Algeria to Hong Kong, 2019 was a year of anti-establishment rage – “What unites the protests is that all are responding to a sense of exclusion, pessimism about the future, and a feeling of having lost control to unaccountable elites”

5 December 2019 (AFP) – Angry citizens have swelled the streets of cities across the globe this year, pushing back against a disparate range of policies but often expressing a common grievance — the establishment’s failure to heed their demands for a more equitable future. While street protests are nothing new, experts say the intense […]

Average weekly earnings of private services sector and goods producing sector jobs, 1964-2018. Graphic: Cornell Law School

Quality of U.S. jobs declining drastically – “The long-term loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs over the past thirty years has produced troubling ripple effects for many Americans”

WASHINGTON, 14 November 2019 (CPA) – The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today announced the launch of a comprehensive new economic indicator, the US Private Sector Job Quality Index (JQI). CPA has partnered with Cornell University, the University of Missouri, and the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity (GISP) to unveil a new measure of America’s changing […]

Fires burn in Pará state, Brazil, in September 2019. Jair Bolsonaro accused Leonardo DiCaprio of ‘giving money for the Amazon to be torched’. Photo: Nelson Almeida/ AFP / Getty Images

Brazil’s president Bolsonaro claims Leonardo DiCaprio paid for Amazon fires – “Our negligent and incompetent president, responsible for an environmental dismantling unprecedented in our country, wants to blame DiCaprio”

By Tom Phillips 29 November 2019 (The Guardian) – Brazil’s president has falsely accused the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the deliberate incineration of the Amazon rainforest. Jair Bolsonaro – a populist nationalist who has vowed to drive environmental NGOs from Brazil – made the claim on Friday, reportedly telling supporters: “This Leonardo DiCaprio’s […]

The Rieckmann’s mantle in their home in Fremont, Wisconsin, on 20 November 2019. Photo: Jason Vaughn / TIME

Small American farmers are nearing extinction – “They’re trying to wipe us off the map”

By Alana Semuels 27 November 2019 FREMONT, Wisconsin (TIME) – For nearly two centuries, the Rieckmann family has raised cows for milk in this muddy patch of land in the middle of Wisconsin. Mary and John Rieckmann, who now run the farm and its 45 cows, have seen all manners of ups and downs — […]

Rhone Glacier and Trient Glacier in Switzerland before and after melt caused by global warming. Photo: ReutersRhone Glacier and Trient Glacier in Switzerland before and after melt caused by global warming. Photo: Reuters

New photos vs old: comparisons show dramatic Swiss glacier retreat – “We have never seen such a fast rate of glacial decline since the measurements have started”

By Denis Balibouse 25 November 2019 THE FURKA PASS, Switzerland (Reuters) – On the hairpin bend of a Swiss mountain pass, a Victorian-era hotel built for tourists to admire the Rhone Glacier has been abandoned now that the ice has retreated nearly 2 km (1.2 miles) uphill. Where mighty glaciers once spilled into Swiss valleys […]

Protesters block an intersection during the WTO protests in Seattle, 30 November 2019. Photo: The UW Daily

The Battle of Seattle: 20 years later

By James Galasyn 30 November 2019 (Desdemona Despair) – It was twenty years ago today: the protests against the third WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Seattle on 30 November 1999. The ongoing clashes between protesters and the Seattle Police Department came to be known as the Battle of Seattle, and they set the tone of […]

Undated photos of Susan and Carl Chase show them in their teenage years. They chose to end their lives on 27 October 2019, writing, “Dying is natural, and inescapable. We see nothing good about stretching the process out over as many years as possible.” Photo: Carl and Susan Chase / The Ellsworth American

Together, a Maine couple left the world, provoking a debate about death and choice – “The pressure of over-population is bringing about the destruction of civilization and will eventually cause the extinction of our species as we make the planet unfit for ourselves”

By Eric Russell 24 November 2019 (Portland Press Herald) – They wanted to leave this world together, on their own terms, and so on 27 October 2019, Carl and Susan Chase held hands in their favorite spot at home overlooking Horseshoe Cove in Brooksville until death came. Carl, an accomplished sailor and musician, was 77. […]

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